


500 Miles

by torrentialTriages



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Damien and Mark's Great Big Road Trip, Damien and an attempt at relationship counselling, Damien's powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 08:51:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9648731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torrentialTriages/pseuds/torrentialTriages
Summary: Day One (or so) of the Epic Impromptu Road Trip. Damien and Mark have a sleepover and a heart-to-heart (or so).





	

**Author's Note:**

> i've caught up to mini episode number 6, i am aware of some of the events of episode 32 but am not there yet.

Mark stares at the gaunt, haggard reflection in the mirror of the motel bathroom, sitting on the lip of the bathtub. His legs are tired, his arms are tired from keeping himself up when his legs fail, his back and thighs are tired from keeping him upright, and Damien's fucked off to go get dinner for them both. But dammit, he's going to have this introspective moment. He lost two years, he might as well get caught up to speed on how his body's fared since then.

Nobody bothered to cut his hair, and he didn't know how good he was at growing a beard, but there was definitely some bushy facial hair action going on. If he didn't know better, he'd say he was Jesus back from the dead, sallow and gaunt and wild-eyed, red rims under his eyes speaking of two years kept awake despite the fact that he knows his body's been bedridden for two _entire_ years. He's got the bedsores to prove it. There are dark circles under his eyes to match the ones on Damien's face. Joanie would be horrified, if she knew... if she cared.

They put _compression socks_ on him. It's embarrassing to look at the open-toed gauzy leggings, so he gives his toes a cursory wiggle on the warming tile to make sure they're still real too and continues to look in the mirror.

His fingers are bonier than they were now. The lack of exercise can explain the atrophying of his muscles, but fingers, which relied on tendons... Maybe the AM was only barely keeping him alive on that IV drip. Maybe Joanie was... he can't think about this.

 _(Maybe Joanie was waiting for the right moment to pull the plug, so he'd-)_ He _won't_ think about this.

It feels like the right thing to do, now that Damien's gone and given him room alone with his thoughts, mourning the connections he'd had and never got to follow up on. It feels right to find his sister and tell her he's alright, he's alive, he doesn't necessarily have to tell her where she is, if he truly can't trust her, but he has to let her know he's alright, it's only responsible of him as her little brother to check in...

And... Sam. Mark watches the mirror as he rubs his face wearily. Sam. He's not sure he didn't hallucinate her. She _seemed_ more real than the coming and going Englishpeople even though neither of them were really corporeal, so much more vivid and he couldn't have hallucinated her, right, how could he hallucinate someone from the twenty-first century when he's been stuck speaking and thinking Regency-ese for so long, how could he hallucinate "yolo" all on his own? How could he hallucinate how the lakewater clung to her clothes, the water running in rivulets down her freckled arm as she guided his hand into the water, took him underwater, hair floating halo-like around them, then screwed her face up and- and then he woke up without her. She'd promised him they'd be together. How could he have made those up? He needs to find her.

He thinks she's got all the constellations in the sky on her skin, and given the chance, he'd press his lips to every one, reciting their names like blessings. The Boondoggle. Snuffleupagus maximus. Sam. Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam. The way she laughs makes him want to pull every star still in the sky to them, so he can have some brilliance to match her smile too.

"Yo." Damien shuffles into the room, dumping plastic bags on the bed closest to the door. "How you doing, buddy?" He saunters into the bathroom, extending his hand. "You wanna get up?"

Mark just sighs, the moment lost, and allows Damien to help him up so they can totter over to sit on the bed.

"You like instant noodles, right? I got a bunch." He hands a pair of chopsticks to Mark, and checks the complimentary kettle, chattering as he sets it to boil. "It's gonna be fun, right? Like a mini-sleepover or some shit." Mark fiddles with the chopsticks. He doesn't want to break them yet, then he'd just spend the rest of the time with a perfectly good pair of chopsticks, and where was the anticipation in that?

"You wanna, uh, see what flavor you want?" Damien dumps one bag in Mark's lap. Mark reaches in and scatters chicken, beef, vegetable, Oriental (two decades! two decades, two years in a coma, and he still doesn't understand what they mean by "oriental flavor") and spicy beef-flavored instant noodle packets on the bedspread, and Damien rips open a bag of styrofoam bowls. "And, uh, get me a chicken one, will ya?" Mark decides haphazardly that he's going to have spicy beef (he was throwing them back in the bag in no particular order, he's fine with this, Damien looks... too white to handle spice, to put it bluntly). "Thanks, pal."

"Uh huh." Not scintillating conversation, but Mark just wants to think about Sam a little longer, real or not.

"So what's on your mind?" Damien snatches up the chicken noodles in exchange for a bowl, and rummages for his own chopsticks. He snaps them, holding up the two sticks approvingly. "If we're having a sleepover we might as well share deep dark secrets, right? ... Well, maybe not that deep, but what's up with you, Bryant?" Sometimes, when he says Mark's last name, the n sounds muted. Mark is probably imagining it, he must be thinking about that Dr. Bright he was told about.

"... Sam, I guess." Mark toys with his yet-unbroken chopsticks, and heaves a sigh. "I can't... she has to have been real."

"You're still on about her? Dude. You need to let go, the past is in the past." Damien gestures with a chopstick in each hand as he dumps the contents of his packet into the bowl. Mark does the same, with a bit more finesse. "I mean, I don't know shit about the time travel. But what are the odds you're gonna find each other again, right? You're probably not even on the same continent." Damien's words are making sense. But... Mark still wants to believe. "Besides, who knows if she remembers you? What if this is some astral projection thing where she can only go to wherever the hell you were when she's dreaming? What if she's one of those people who compartmentalizes _everything_ , and won't remember shit about her travels? Trust me, you don't want to risk even more heartbreak just because your perfect woman is out there but barely wants to know you. Oh, water's done."

Mark breaks the chopsticks from muscle memory, almost surprised at how much more force it takes now. Damien returns with the kettle, steaming water hissing as it hits the noodles, the aroma of the flavoring so much stronger than when dry. Mark sloshes the water around, some memory telling him this was how to make instant noodle soup the right way. The warmth is real. The smell is real. The steam, condensing on his face and beard (he'll have to do something about that) is real.

"We'll find you a real girl," Damien repeats his promise from earlier as he pokes at his noodles until they're soggy and limp. "She'll be like Sam, but better, hey? 'Cause now you can actually make out with her and shit and you'll know she's real." He pauses to untangle his chopsticks from the softening noodles. "Or a dude, I dunno."

Mark cracks a dry smile. "Sure."

"That's the spirit. Reality from now on."

Maybe Damien's right, he thinks, the bowl warm in his lap. He'll get back on his feet, and maybe he won't forget about Sam, but he won't devote all his time to thinking about her. He'll reintegrate into the world and he and Damien can have fun on this wild road trip and hey, it wasn't the great photography road trip he wanted but it'll be great. Damien's a great travel partner.

Yeah, that sounds great.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm drakanekurashiki on tumblr :V


End file.
